Still editing the same novel. I got to talk to Tess Gerritsen about this project when I was at Muse and the Marketplace. I felt so self-conscious during the whole conversation that I became at least three separate people. But…

A two-man panhandling team worked the MBTA Red Line on Monday evening. One was dressed in full Army fatigues: BDUs, boots, cover, duffel bag slung over the shoulder. His jacket had a tag that said “U.S. ARMY” and a flag…

New post up on Overthinking It about premium cable’s favorite genre for historical drama: Blood, Tits and Scowling. And yes, it’s a genre: The beauty of Blood, Tits and Scowling as a genre is that, when you put them all…

Look, Conor, I’m as intrigued as anyone at the Paul/Frank bill that would end the federal prohibition on pot use. In fact, it’s something of a shame that it’s taken two crusty white men to introduce legislation that would improve…

I had some time to kill in the Inman Square / Central Square neighborhood of Cambridge weekend before last, so I hit up some used bookstores. I only intended to browse there. Of course I ended up buying. That’s what…

Much thanks to Glenn Greenwald and Matt Yglesias for reminding us how useless polls are. The poll in question, a survey conducted at the liberal Netroots Nation conference this past week, found the following: 27 percent strongly approving of Obama…

Those of you following me on Facebook or Twitter know about the hassle I’ve been going through with Comcast lo these past weeks. Months now, if you trace it to the first modem outages in early April. Throughout this whole…

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. – Arthuer Schopenhauer Our office shares a floor and a restroom with a rent-a-desk tech center. Coming out of the men’s room the other day, I found…

Guys, I figured it out. One of the key dilemmas of human experience. The question of why the artists we discover in our youth – our turbulent adolescence, the college years where we develop our critical stance – seem so…

New post up on Overthinking It comparing X-Men First Class to the spy fiction of the Sixties: Despite the explosive mutant battle on the shores of Cuba that caps the film, the primary conflict in First Class is espionage. Sebastian…

TOO LATE TO RUN

Hard-hitting crime photographer Mara Cunningham is back on the streets of Boston.

The FBI scooped up the city's most notorious real estate developer without warning, and they're not saying why.

As Mara digs into Mickey Scanlon's arrest, every clue she uncovers turns up more trouble: gun-toting militias, corrupt bankers, and psycho arsonists. All of them have a score to settle with Mickey, and they'll run over anything—or anyone—who gets in their way.